The Un Certain Regard section is the second most significant section of the Cannes Film Festival. It presents rising directors who already have a presence in world cinema. It is the case of Un Poeta (A Poet), directed by Simón Mesa Soto. The Colombian filmmaker presented his last film, Amparo, …
The ripped-from-the-headlines Case 137 (Dossier 137) combines two genres everybody loves. The first is the detailed bureaucracy of justice and how much easier it is to find objective truth since we all started carrying recording devices (our mobile phones) around at all times. Think Anatomy of a Fall and Saint …
The Portuguese director Pedro Pinho presents his latest film, O Riso e a Faca (I Only Rest in the Storm), at the Un Certain Regard section in this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The author’s last full-length feature, A Fábrica de Nada, had its premiere at the Quinzaine des Cineastes in …
The Semaine de la Critique (Critics Week) is a crucial sidebar at the Festival de Cannes. It focuses on debut and sophomore films. A Useful Ghost (Pee Chai Dai Ka) by the Thai director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke is another hyped first-time directorial effort. The semaine is responsible for unveiling buzzy titles …
In French director Emmanuel Courcol’s comedy drama, The Marching Band (En fanfare), the celebrated orchestra conductor, Thibaut Desormeaux (Benjamin Lavernhe) is diagnosed with leukemia. To his surprise, the tests to identify a bone marrow donor reveal that he was adopted. The search for his brother leads him to Jimmy (Pierre Lottin), …
The grand Austrian director Michael Haneke famously stated, to paraphrase, that a film is 24 lies per second in service of the attempt to find the truth. In this sense, cinema is a mere representation of the reality. This conceptualization allows multiple directors to experiment with the understanding of the …
The sophomore effort in the Napo River (Toroboro) in Manolo Sarmiento’s diptych about the local communities is La Consulta Popular, or The People’s Referendum. He focuses on the political aspect of the situation. With this film, he shifts his lenses to the isolated tribes, who decided to continue far from …
When it comes to the Indian film industry, there are only a few actors who don’t need to do extravagant promotional events to sell tickets. One such actor is Suriya, and fans go berserk whenever he announces his next movie. However, some of his previous films haven’t turned out to …
Zeitgeisty trends combine in Peacock: how it mocks the vapid wealthy with lives so comfortable they must manufacture problems for themselves is clearly inspired by the work of Ruben Östlund. The problem is that social satire works best with a strong opinion about the behaviour being mocked. Are you teasing …
Director Erico Rassi has become one of the most fascinating voices of the newest Brazilian cinema. He combines the classical codes of the Western genre and gives them another significance. In his debut feature, the 2016 Comeback, he narrates the story of a man who lost the magnificence of his …
Acting as a true, unapologetically enthusiastic celebration of Hong Kong action icon Jackie Chan, Kung Fu Rookie (or Timuchin), is a fun homage to a significant figure in martial arts cinema. With Chan’s Karate Kid: Legends releasing in a few months and his classic Rumble in the Bronx celebrating its …
Content Warning: This is a review of the movie Baby John, and it includes disturbing topics, including discussion of rape, torture, and violence against women and children. No matter where you are in the world, police propaganda has the same problem: how to justify violence meted out by cops with …
There is a clear point of view in No Other Land: what is happening in the West Bank is wrong. Frankly it’s all the more powerful for its righteous commitment to this line. But just because something is an unusual, well-made and remarkable documentary doesn’t make it a crucial piece …
There is a long history of verite cinema within the documentary format. Within conversations that surround the ethics of this more observational form, we discern a conflict: on the necessity of intervention. This is a contentious topic, particularly within the filming of nature documentaries, where the observer must not intervene …
The cinematic format holds the privilege of imagining numerous variables of what the future may be like. The screen platforms artists to compose frames through camera lenses to reflect on the present and create a future through imagery. In this sense, the French director Aude Léa Rapin, who previously directed …
This Telugu-language movie was guaranteed major international distribution once N. T. Rama Rao Jr. agreed to star. After all, he was half of the leading duo in RRR, the Indian movie which so dramatically punched through to an international audience. Yet Devara Part 1 is not designed for an international …
There is a disturbing edge to Yudhra that is only slightly explained by the plot. It is clear from how action director Federico Cueva, cinematographer Jay Oza and director Ravi Udyawar staged and filmed the brutal fight scenes that they really enjoyed going so hard. The (superb) night-time gunfight on …
This movie contains an entire wedding party being taken hostage, but the violence within Kahan Shuru Kahan Khatam is largely cartoonish and unthreatening. At one point, heavily armed henchmen break into a house and are easily trounced by a group of middle-aged women armed only with heavy sticks. Let’s repeat …
The empty nest is notoriously difficult for parents to deal with, but My Everything (Mon Inséparable) has taken a fresh angle to this ordinary dilemma: the adult son who’s ready to flee the coop has an intellectual disability. Joël (Charles Peccia Galletto) is in his late twenties/early thirties and lives …
Though no one has ever said so explicitly, The Mallorca Files was clearly designed to remind the British of the benefits of a close relationship with Europe. The show is filmed in a Spain where everyone speaks fluent English, with one British and one German lead actor, and a supporting …